2 . Christmas is a very important festival in the west. However, different countries celebrate Christmas in different ways.   

In England

Christmas is celebrated on December 25th. Christmas dinner is usually a roast turkey with Christmas pudding for dessert. Christmas decorations must be taken down on the twelfth day after Christmas otherwise it brings bad luck for the rest of the year.   

In Australia

In Australia, it never snows at Christmas because Christmas is in the summer holiday. A traditional Christmas dinner is often held in the backyard for BBQ’s, picnics in the garden or even on the beach. People call the Christmas season the “silly season”. Christmas is a deeply religious festival. The Christmas season officially begins on December 8th. Christmas Eve is known as the “Good Night”.   

In Germany

In Germany, people hold special markets every December that specialize in selling decorations and other Christmas related goods. People make and drink a special wine, which is called “mulled wine”. Christmas goose is also needed by many people. Families gather together on Christmas Eve to open their presents.   

In Russia

Russian Christmas is very interesting because they celebrate Christmas twice and Christmas on December 25th is not for many Russians with religious beliefs. They celebrate Christmas on January 7th to commemorate (纪念) the birthday of Jesus. However, even more influential is still on December 25th when the streets and main venues of Christmas decorations are colorful. Christmas goose is traditionally eaten by people on Christmas Eve.

3 . Do you love seeing beautiful lanterns outside? The best time to do this is during the Lantern Festival, which falls on the 15th day of the first lunar (阴历) month. This year it is on Feb22, marking the end of Spring Festival celebrations.

Lanterns are a big part of the festival. One story says that the bright lanterns show respect for gods. Another says that people light lanterns to celebrate the declining (消退的) darkness of winter.

Watching lanterns is a great event. You see lanterns in any sizes and shapes you can imagine, from animals to plants and flowers. To make this activity more fun, people paste (粘贴) riddles (谜语) on the lanterns. “Ten plus ten, still is ten, ten minus ten, again is ten.” Guess what? It is a pair of gloves.

In some places, people like releasing sky lanterns, which are called Kongming lanterns. A sky lantern is a small hot air balloon made of paper, with an opening at the bottom, where there is a small fire source. When the bright lights fly high in the sky, people bless family members and make wishes. Releasing river lights is also a way to bless for each other. Usually, the lights are in the shape of a lotus (荷花).

In old times, the Lantern Festival was also romantic. At that time, young girls were not allowed to go out very often except during certain festivals. Therefore, looking at lanterns gave young people a chance to meet each other. A line from Xin Qiji, a poet during the Song Dynasty, shows this: “Anxiously, I searched for her in thousands, hundreds of ways. Suddenly I turned, and there she was in the declining light.”

5 . Almost all cultures celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of another in some way. Different cultures celebrate the beginning of a new year in different ways, and at different times on the calendar.

In Western countries, people usually celebrate New Year at midnight on December 31st—January 1st. People may go to parties, sometimes dressed in formal (正式的) clothes, and they may drink champagne (香槟) at midnight. During the first minutes of the new year, people cheer and wish each other happiness for the year ahead. But some cultures prefer to celebrate the new year by waking up early to watch the sunrise. They welcome the new year with the first light of the sunrise.

Many cultures also do special things to get rid of (消除) bad luck at the beginning of a new year. For example, in Ecuador, families make a big doll from old clothes. The doll is filled with old newspapers and firecrackers. At midnight, these dolls are burned to show the bad things from the past year are gone and the new year can start afresh (重新). Other common traditions to keep away bad luck in a new year include throwing things into rivers or the ocean, or saying special things on the first day of the new year.

Other New Year traditions are followed to bring good luck in the new year. One widespread Spanish tradition for good luck is to eat grapes on New Year’s Day. The more grapes a person eats, the more good luck the person will have in the year. In France, people eat pancakes for good luck at New Year. In the United States, some people eat black-eyed peas for good luck, but to get good luck for a whole year you have to eat 365 of them!

8 . One year my children came home from school asking where we were going on summer vacation. It seemed that all the other kids were________ where they were spending the summer. I couldn’t ______to take them anywhere but I didn’t want to tell them that so I just said, “It’s a surprise!” They were delighted. That bought me a little more time.

I called several amusement parks to see if there was a half-price event during the summer but no such ______ . I tried everything, with no success, so I called some of the other moms to find that most were in the same situation that I was. We decided to ______something fun for our kids to do. We had a meeting, all five of us, and created what is now called a “playcation”.

One mother was a ______ , so on Mondays the kids would all go to her house. They would play games using plants and vegetables. They also planted vegetables and watch them grow over the summer.

Another mother had Bible______on Tuesdays. She asked some questions about Bible. The kid who answered correctly got a penny, which they all turned in at the end to buy their goodie bags.

At our house on Wednesdays, I made an outdoor_______training with my spare tires. The kids also walked a balance beam and raced through large cardboard boxes taped together.

On______they had arts and crafts across the street. Fridays were hosted by a wonderful single dad with a metal detector who took everyone out treasure______ .

The summer was a big success. Okay, it wasn’t Disney World, ______the kids didn’t miss anything. My son actually asked me, “Can we do this again next year?”